“We’re officially adding a new piece of software to the list of default common applications we expect employees to use, and that’s the Mozilla Firefox browser,” said Sutor.

“Firefox has been around for years, of course. Today we already have thousands of employees using it on Linux, Mac, and Windows laptops and desktops, but we’re going to be adding thousands more users to the rolls.”

IBM has nearly 400,000 employees on its books worldwide, so its declaration of Firefox love might hurt a little bit in other browser camps. At the same time, it will hardly come as a surprise given that the company has contributed to Mozilla’s open source effort over the past decade.

In fact some might ask: What took you so long, IBM?

Sutor said IBM staff wouldn’t be forced to use Firefox as their default browser at work. But the company will roll it out to all new computers within Big Blue, and will strongly urge its employees to embrace Mozilla’s open source surfing tool.

He added that IBM had adopted Firefox to prepare the firm for the arrival of all things cloudy.

“For the shift to the cloud to be successful, open standards must be used in the infrastructure, in the applications, and in the way people exchange data,” he opined.

“The longstanding commitment of Mozilla to open standards and the quality of the implementation of them in Firefox gives us confidence that this is a solid, modern platform that should be part of IBM’s own internal transformation to significantly greater use of Cloud Computing.”

The Register asked Sutor, via the wonder of Twitter, to tell us which browser the company had dumped after throwing its arms open to Firefox.